The Naked Book: #WhyIWrite

movabletypenyc:

We humans have always been storytellers, passing down our tales in voice and in stone, on parchment and page. Now we do that passing down in hypertext, with tools more widely available than any means of mass communication in the history of the world.

My wonder at the ubiquity of the writing impulse makes me at times desperately curious to know where it comes from. Why do so many choose writing as their hobby? And even more remarkable, why do so many choose this most challenging enterprise as their career? .

“Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” —Gene Fowler

In the beginning (aka, 5th grade), I wrote because I liked telling my own stories and the attention they brought me.

In later years, I wrote because George Lucas doesn’t speak for everyone: 

As much as I always wanted to be
      Luke Skywalker
I knew all the force in the world
could not make it so.

   Long, long ago
in a galaxy far, far away
poets risked death and poverty
      never questioning why
      because they knew

there are too many stories that must be told
to let one person tell them all.

Today, I write because sometimes there are things that need to be said that no one else is willing (or able) to say.